It was good for me to be afflicted, that I might learn your statutes. (Ps 119:71)

The past few weeks I helped care for my mom as she died from cancer.  I briefly discussed in the last blog how this experience has affected my thoughts on death.  It has also made me think on suffering as I watch my mom suffer. Let me take some time and share some thoughts on suffering.

Consider these two questions:  Why did God allow Stalin to take the lives of 20 million Russians?  Why did God allow a gunman to take the life of my son? 

Which question is harder to answer?

The Stalin question multiplies the evil 20 million times, so on a purely objective basis, the Stalin question would seem to be the more difficult one.

But it isn’t.

The two questions are the same question, and yet they are not.  To the man who lost his son, the question is deeply personal, but for the man today asking about Stalin, the question is intellectual and theoretical.  To the man who lost his son, the suffering is close and intense, but for the man asking about Stalin, the suffering is distant.

Suffering is not primarily an intellectual issue.  It is a pastoral one.  This fact does not deny intellectual answers to why God allows suffering.  Such answers exist, and as intellectual answers they can be cogent.  But the most difficult aspects to suffering are the pastoral ones.

When people suffer, they don’t need logic.  They need a hug.  They need compassion.  They need an ear to listen.  They need love.  Reason is inadequate to meet their needs.  Sometimes we forget this, but suffering has a way of bringing to the surface human weakness and the human need for something beyond food, water, and sleep.  Suffering reminds us that there is more to a man than biology and logic.  Suffering, thus, points us beyond earth.  In suffering, the curtain is pulled back and we get to see earth in its rawest form. 

Suffering is natural to earth, but most people make earth the pursuit of their lives.  They want more of earth – more money, more land, more power, more fame, more sex, more knowledge, more youth, you name it.  All of the above are among the pleasures earth offers.  They are the things people chase.  People chase earth.  In this sense, Earth is the most common god people have. 

The problem, however, is that earth is not God.  God made us for Himself, but we would rather be a rich, comfortable business owner with a poster family.  To most people, that kind of pursuit is more important than knowing God. 

But suffering exposes earth.  It calls us not to make earth our hope.  Earth may offer good food, a warm home, a fat bank account, political power, and the adulation of others, but it also offers cancer, divorce, rape, poverty, backbiting, prison, injustice, floods, earthquakes, death, and more.  In other words – suffering.  If someone wishes to chase the goods of earth, suffering is a stark slap in the face that in the end, earth isn’t what you hoped for.  In the end, earth is bankrupt. 

To people inclined to pursue the false god of Earth, suffering is a necessary mercy.  If suffering opens someone’s eyes to see the emptiness of earth and to pursue instead the knowledge of God, it will have been a great blessing.  Earth is short-sighted.  Suffering has the potential to turn people away from a path that promises short-term pleasure but delivers long-term pain and emptiness.

God insists that this broken, fallen earth produce suffering because He wants us to look beyond earth for our meaning and fulfillment.  In a fallen world, suffering is necessary.  We need it because without it, we would be all the more enticed to chase that which would doom us.

Sometimes you hear people talk about life on earth being meaningless, and when they talk such talk, often one of the first examples they mention is meaningless suffering – perhaps the suffering of an innocent child.  And on the terms of mere earth, they may be quite right.  They do see something that is real, for apart from God, earth is meaningless.  Earth all by itself leads nowhere.  That is the message of Ecclesiastes.  If you rip God out of earth and try to discern meaning in earth, you will come up empty.  Thus, what seems to be meaningless suffering carries meaning because if nothing else, it demonstrates the meaninglessness of earth on its own.  So-called “meaningless suffering” screams to you to stop pursuing earth.  There is no meaning there.

But the irony is that the very people who say earth has no meaning often spend their lives pursuing their meaning in earth.  They recognize that earth cannot fulfill them, but they seek their fulfillment in it.  When you recognize that earth on its own is empty, broken, and meaningless, you should look beyond earth for meaning and fulfillment.  Suffering helps you see this reality.

Thus, even when suffering seems meaningless, it is that sense of meaninglessness that is part of its meaning.  It points you away from earth so you can find your purpose elsewhere. 

As I watched my mom suffer, I saw so clearly how empty and shallow earth is.  I saw suffering that, on earthly terms, had no meaning.  But what I saw drove me to think more on God, who Himself suffered and bled for me, and in doing so, instilled meaning into His suffering and gave me hope in mine.    

Father, I don’t want suffering.  But I do want more of You.  And if suffering helps me know You better, bring what is necessary to bring me near to You.

Jesus learned obedience through what He suffered.  When we look at that Scripture, we often focus on the question of how the eternal Son of God needed to learn anything, but that question doesn’t trouble me.  The eternal Son of God became a man; and as a man, He had to learn all sorts of things.  He learned how to walk and talk.  He learned how to count.  He learned how to read.  He learned carpentry and doctrine.  He learned history and Jewish culture.  He learned Mary’s fears and Joseph’s desires.  He learned weakness and humility.  To say that He learned obedience is no surprise. 

To me, however, the more important part of that Scripture is how Jesus learned.  He learned obedience through what He suffered.

Pain teaches us obedience.  Comfort does not.  The man who obeys when he wants to doesn’t learn anything about obedience because he is doing what he wants.  But the man who says, “Father, if it be possible, take this cup from me,” and who then walks to the Cross – that man has learned obedience. 

Suffering changes you.  It makes some people bitter and others humble.  It shows you your weakness up close.  It shows that you are not in charge of your life.  When you see these truths, you can mature, for the greatest hindrance to spiritual maturity is self.  Suffering has the ability to open the eyes of your heart to see that your “self” is not as strong as you think.  Suffering can help you look beyond yourself, and it is precisely then that God can draw nearer.  Suffering helps faith understand God in a deeper way.

And suffering often exposes a lack of faith.  It is much easier to hide the real you when life is comfortable.  But when pain shows up, the real you comes out. 

Thus, suffering reveals who you are and changes you simultaneously. 

This is why God insists that we experience pain and suffering.  He doesn’t want us to hide, and He wants to help us die to ourselves.

Jesus, thank you that you have gone through suffering we will never understand and promise to be with us always in the midst of ours.  Hallelujah!

Leanne and I had dinner with another couple a few days ago, and we got to talking about the church in America.  The wife of the other couple made the observation that the American church is full of Christians who have stagnated in their spiritual growth.  They go to church.  They read their Bible.  They may serve in some capacity or even give.  But they will go only so far. 

Her observation is spot on, and there is a reason why.  Christianity is about more than just doing nice practices and being respectable.  Jesus told his followers to take up their cross.  And that’s hard.  The cross involves self-denial and suffering, and people aren’t willing to go that far.  But in the kingdom of God, no other way exists except the way of the Cross.  The disciples give us many examples of it. 

The Philippians threw Paul and Silas in prison.  Herod slew James.  Rome exiled John and crucified Peter.  The Jews stoned Stephen.  Read the New Testament and you quickly encounter persecution and opposition to the gospel everywhere you turn.  In the New Testament, God’s people suffer. 

Paul tells us that suffering for Jesus has been granted us (Ph 1:29) and that we should rejoice in our sufferings (Rm 5:3ff).  Peter says that we are not to be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes, as though something strange were happening (I Pet 4:12).  The writer to the Hebrews describes the people of faith being mocked, flogged, imprisoned, stoned, sawn in two, killed with the sword and more (Heb 11:36-8).  John relates the trials of the people of God as a central component of his visions in The Revelation.  Jesus says that this world will hate you on account of Him (Jn 15:18-19) and that you are blessed when the world insults, persecutes, and slanders you because of Him (Mt 5:10-12).

It is fair to say that the New Testament considers the suffering of God’s people to be normal.  We are to expect hardship for Jesus’ sake, and when it comes we are to embrace it and rejoice in it. 

If you listen to many Christians talk, however, this concept is as foreign as Andromeda.  They think that if God blesses us, we won’t have to deal with pain or hardship.  They consider the fiery trial to be evidence of God’s absence. 

How did we get this way?  I mean, you have to twist Scripture pretty badly to think that God somehow owes you a nice, comfortable existence.  The truth that God’s people suffer kicks you in the teeth.  And many still miss it. 

We miss it because we don’t like it.  We miss it because this truth comes in a package with lots of other truths.  We open the package, and we see that God loves us.  We ooh and ahh over that truth because we like it.  We see that God has come and died for sin, that we are forgiven, that we are His adopted children, and that we inherit all the spiritual blessings of Christ, and we set these truths on the mantel above the fireplace for all to see.  They are wondrous and beautiful and precious.  But when we pull out of the box that bit about suffering, we set that truth behind the water heater in the garage where we quickly forget it.  It doesn’t seem so lovely as those mantelpiece truths. 

The truth about suffering and trials, however, comes in a Biblical package for a reason.  The truths of God were never meant to be separated.  Suffering belongs on the mantelpiece right with the love of God.  When you see them together, you see the depths of the love of God and the blessings of Christ even more.  When you see them together, you see that the love of God and the mercies of Christ are not merely the shallow comforts of earth but are deeper than the deepest pain you will ever face.  The sufferings of the saints make those mantelpiece truths shine more gloriously.  You don’t understand the love of God until you have suffered.

And suffering likewise needs those other truths.  When you put them together, you show the hope that you have in the face of pain, but when you relegate suffering to the garage, you separate it from the very truths that will help you through it when it comes. 

And here’s the thing. 

Suffering will come.  That’s a promise.  From God Himself.

But He also promises to be with you in the midst of the fiery furnace.  He says He loves you and forgives you and has died for you and has made your soul insanely rich in Christ.  And He says all these promises are true even while you suffer.  Your sufferings do not negate those other truths.  They all go together. 

Thank you, Lord, that we can trust you in the good times and the bad.

Who would have thought a few months ago that a virus would run rampant through the entire world, killing where it went, instilling fear in entire populations, and shutting down the economies of virtually every nation on the globe?  I never would have dreamed this.  You read a lot of news about this virus, but the people who tell the news, by and large, have no heavenly perspective on what they are talking about.  Thus, it is easy for the Christian to overdose on the news and start believing things contrary to God’s Word.  What I want to do is give a theological perspective on the events surrounding us.  So here are some thoughts:

Coronavirus is the result of the Fall

When God created the world, He said it was very good, but when Adam and Eve fell, they brought calamity to God’s very good world.  When they sinned, they corrupted the entire human race and the world system we live in.  Here on Earth everything is now broken.  The calamity that sin brought includes problems like sickness and death, pain and suffering, emptiness and sorrow.  The current coronavirus is merely one small result of that Fall. 

Coronavirus is God’s reminder that this world is not and never will be the utopia we want it to be.  Coronavirus is God’s reminder that this Earth is broken and if you live for Earth, you get only brokenness in the end.  Coronavirus is God’s reminder that this world is not our home. 

God gave consequences for the Fall, and those consequences exist for a reason.  Coronavirus is merely a small example of one of those consequences. 

Coronavirus shows us that we are not in control.

This is the 21^st century.  This is America.  We have scientific knowledge.  We have advanced technology.  We have money and comfort and pleasure. 

But we are not in control.

Coronavirus is a reminder that the human race is weaker than we would like to think.  Past eras saw this fact more clearly than we do, for they were not sheltered from pain to the extent we are.  They had no electricity, no central heat or air conditioning, no Tylenol for pain, no Netflix for entertainment.  They did not need a major plague to know that they were not in control.  Daily life told them that.

But we are different.  We shield ourselves from everyday pains and get drunk on the elixir of entertainment or our own comfort.  We have a thousand choices at our fingertips.  Until something severe comes along, we pass the time thinking we are fine . . . we are in control.  Our information, technology, and entertainment have built for us a house of cards that we put our trust in.  Coronavirus tears down this house of cards. 

Coronavirus is not bigger than God

Coronavirus shows us that we cannot put our trust in our own strength or this world system, but coronavirus cannot and will not harm God.  To God coronavirus is a speck of dust in the universe. 

What this means is that the proper spiritual response to coronavirus is to acknowledge our own sin and weakness and run to God.  God is bigger than coronavirus. 

On Sunday night our church met online, and several people shared that God had spoken to them through Psalm 91.  Here is what it says:

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
² I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress,
    my God, in whom I trust.”

³ For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler
    and from the deadly pestilence.
⁴ He will cover you with his pinions,
    and under his wings you will find refuge;
    his faithfulness is a shield and buckler.
⁵ You will not fear the terror of the night,
    nor the arrow that flies by day,
⁶ nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness,
    nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.

⁷ A thousand may fall at your side,
    ten thousand at your right hand,
    but it will not come near you.
⁸ You will only look with your eyes
    and see the recompense of the wicked.

⁹ Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place—
    the Most High, who is my refuge—
¹⁰ no evil shall be allowed to befall you,
    no plague come near your tent.

¹¹ For he will command his angels concerning you
    to guard you in all your ways.
¹² On their hands they will bear you up,
    lest you strike your foot against a stone.
¹³ You will tread on the lion and the adder;
    the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot.

¹⁴ “Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him;
    I will protect him, because he knows my name.
¹⁵ When he calls to me, I will answer him;
    I will be with him in trouble;
    I will rescue him and honor him.
¹⁶ With long life I will satisfy him
    and show him my salvation.”

God is our protector.  God is our refuge.  God is our fortress.  God is our shield.  God is our deliverer.  God is our shelter.  And God is bigger than coronavirus. 

Psalm 91 does not mean that God’s people never suffer.  Jesus suffered.  Paul suffered.  Peter suffered.  Jacob, Moses, David, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednago, on we could go.  Psalm 91 does not guarantee health, wealth, and prosperity in every instance.  It is a statement of trust in God who takes care of His people.  His faithfulness is our shield. 

Psalm 91 also does not mean we abandon common sense.  Satan quoted this psalm to Jesus to get Jesus to jump off the temple.  We are not to tempt God by being stupid and then say, “God will protect me.”  We are to use common sense and to trust God as we do.  Concerning coronavirus, we will limit physical contact, wash hands, and all the rest, but we do not pretend that these practices are our refuge and fortress.  God is.  And only God is.  Coronavirus should drive us to God.  If it doesn’t, we have no understanding of what is going on or of God Himself.  We see with physical eyes only. 

God will work out good things in the midst of coronavirus

People are suffering and dying.  Families have lost loved ones.  Workers have lost jobs.  Businesses are struggling financially.  All of these situations are real, and I don’t want to minimize the pain people feel.  Coronavirus has brought real suffering.

But in the midst of all the pain, God will do good.  He is that kind of God.  He turned Haman’s plan against him.  He took Satan’s plan to crucify the Son of God and used it to save the world.  Can there be a darker day on Earth than Good Friday?  And yet Good Friday is called Good for a reason.  God turned evil on its head and destroyed it with its own weapon.  He will do the same with coronavirus.

God will use coronavirus for His good purposes.  Coronavirus has already caused many people to be more open to God.  It has caused some to see how shallow and empty Earth is.  It has brought families together.  It has given billions of people more time to seek God, and some have used that time to learn of God and seek Him in Scripture and prayer.

God does not see things the same way we do.  Most people see only the physical and the right now, and if that is all you see, then coronavirus is a sad picture.  But God looks at the spiritual and the eternal.  His perspective is fuller and richer than ours.  He sees things we don’t.  If suffering causes people to seek God, then God will gladly bring suffering.  He will trade the temporary in order to get the eternal, and suffering has this way of causing people to think on the eternal. 

If you look at the news, all you will see is the suffering, but the heavenly news reports different things, and it is not all bad.    

Is coronavirus God’s judgment?

That’s a complicated question.  In one sense it is.  In another sense it may or may not be.  Let me explain.

We need to understand that the wages of sin is death and that the consequences of the Fall are God’s judgment on sin.  In this sense all pain, suffering, sickness, and death is a judgment of sorts.  God has judged sin to be worthy of such consequences.  In this sense, God has woven judgment into the fabric of this world.  Normal pains are judgments.  Even when a baby dies, his death is a result of being born with a sinful nature into a sinful world, and death is God’s normal judgment on sin.  In this sense, coronavirus is a judgment in the same way that the flu or cancer or an avalanche can all be judgments.  This sort of judgment is generic and is part and parcel of living in a fallen world.  I mention it because most people do not think of ordinary pains and deaths as judgments, but they are — even if they have no relation to some specific sin.

However, when people ask if coronavirus is a judgment, they do not have in mind this generic type of judgment.  What they have in mind is whether coronavirus is a special and specific judgment of God on some specific sin or set of sins in the human race. 

To this I have to say, “I don’t know.”  In order to say that coronavirus is or is not some special judgment of God, I would need to receive some special revelation from God, and I have received no such thing.

Some people, however, may confidently declare that God would never punish anyone with such a plague, but those people have never read their Bibles.  In Scripture, God brings special judgments for sin all the time.  Consider Noah and the flood, David after he took the census, Jeremiah and the Babylonian captivity, or the book of the Revelation just to name a few.  We cannot rule out the judgment of God as a possible explanation for coronavirus.  Such judgment would be well within God’s character.

At the same time, neither can we confidently state that coronavirus is a special judgment that God has released upon the world.  People who say this also need to consider their Bibles.  In Scripture, God allows calamities to come upon the righteous and the unrighteous.  Consider Job, the man born blind whom Jesus healed, the persecuted church in Acts, and the psalmists’ frequent cries of “How long, O Lord.” 

It would not surprise me if coronavirus is a special judgment of God.  It would also not surprise me if it is not.  Therefore, given the fact that, apart from some special revelation, we simply don’t know, I think it best for the average believer to not overly concern himself or herself with the question.  Be OK not knowing and focus on more fruitful questions like “How can I draw closer to God . . . How can I live a more holy life . . . How can I love and serve my neighbor?”  Pursuing those kinds of questions will actually bear more fruit in your life.